Rhoads Murphey is a man of many titles, in a different age we might have
called him a "jack of all trades," and I use the term with the
utmost respect.

55 years ago he traveled to China to work for the "Friends Ambulance
Unit." Driving old Chevrolet trucks, which had been converted to
burn charcoal, this international group of young men braved bandits, bureaucratic
red tape and, of course, the Japanese to bring much needed medical supplies
to various far flung sights in southwest China. Although Rhoads was in China
for only four years, 1942 to 1946, he packed a lifetime of experiences into
them...seeing sights that most of us can only dream of and meeting people
that we of a younger generation can only read about in history books.

Currently, Rhoads is, first and foremost, a Professor Emeritus of History
at the University of Michigan, and although the title "Emeritus"
might lead one to believe that Rhoads is "retired," he is in fact
anything but retired.

He continues to teach a number of classes and was, until its reorganization
last fall, the Director of the university's Asian Studies Program. But
this is the University of Michigan, where research and publishing are king,
and so Rhoads also counts among his many kudos the title "author"
having written a number of books, most recently a text book entitled East
Asia: A New History, published by Longman Press. As if this wasn't enough,
he also acts as an academic advisor to undergraduate students, and it was
in this latter capacity that I first met him in 1984.

I had just transferred to the University of Michigan from the New School
for Social Research, in New York City, and thought it best to get some advice
about what classes I should be taking as a "transfer student."
As luck would have it, Rhoads was assigned to me as an academic advisor...and
what luck it was! I introduced myself and explained my problem. Rhoads,
who never seems to get flustered, asked me a few questions and then calmly
guided me through my class selection...making phone calls where necessary,
to ensure that I would get overrides for classes that were already filled,
and "pooh pahing" my various apprehensions. He seemed to know
everyone and everything...at least in the small world of Asian Studies,
and why not...he was the Director.

It was through him that I went on to meet Roger Hackett and Victor Lieberman,
who along with Rhoads, continually challenged me to "think harder,
work harder, and try harder" than I ever had before. Ultimately it
would be the recommendations which they would write which would help me
to land my first jobs in Japan and then, 10 years later, take me back to
the university's Center for Japanese Studies, where I am currently
working on a Graduate Degree.

I enjoyed class with Rhoads because his lectures were always about a
"living history." He had known the people, visited the places,
and read the books...I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, in rapt
attention, as he let drop small snippets of valuable insight into the topics
that we discussed. I fell in love with his easy going approach to everything,
and it would be no lie to say that he changed my life.

I had always wanted to confront him and say "Tell me everything
you know!" But, in the end, it proved much harder than I imagined...
Luckily, this assignment has given me the chance to realize my dream, and
thankfully Rhoads agreed to give me a couple hours of his time to photograph
and record him so that others might enjoy him as much as I do...enjoy!

Why don't we start by talking about how you came to travel to China and
work with the "Friends Ambulance Unit." What year are we talking
about?

RM: 1942.

And where were you?

RM: Where was I? I was in, sitting there minding my own business,
in Philadelphia. Which is my home town, and uhm, I was filling in, teaching,
in my old school, because so many people were being drafted, and what not,
that they had a problem finding enough teachers.

And you were a Conscientious Objector?

RM: Yes.

Tell me about that.

RM: Well that seemed to me, at that time, a perfectly reasonable
thing to do given the experience of the first war, which I wasn't in, of
course, but which I read all about, and which we were very much under the
shadow of...

I can understand that...

RM: ...and I thought it was a useless waste of life and that it wouldn't
accomplish anything in the end. Besides, killing people wasn't going to
solve any problems! Now there was a dilemma, with that second war, the so
called good war, because Nazism was pretty awful and all of us people that
took the "C.O." position felt that, but we also felt that killing
wouldn't solve anything.

(Long Pause)...if they had wanted to try "another way"
we could have told them before, in the first place, not to slap the Germans
with that terrible treaty of Versailles...and then do everything they could
to build up the German's resentment, and then they might have stopped Hitler
long before, blah blah blah, but they didn't do it, so, anyway, this was
a matter of moral conviction on our part. So, that's how we got to be that
way...

Now you say "our part," are you talking about Quakers? Are
you a Quaker?

RM: No, but I went... No, I'm not. But, I went to a Quaker
School and that's where I picked up a lot of these ideas...but I wonder
if I might not have picked them up anyway...as many people did...

So, this was one of the "Friends Schools?"

RM: Yes, one of the Friends Schools in Philadelphia.

Well, I would like to go back to a conversation that we had the other
day and ask you about your reactions to the Spanish Civil War....now at
that time you said that you were too young to have considered going, but
I did my math and...

RM: Well I was still...

...the war didn't end until 1939 so you must have been about 18 when
it started...

RM: No, no, not quite so old, I was still in school.

High School?

RM: Yes, ah, and I was 16 I guess, or something like that, and I
would have gone, I think... I was tempted. But, I thought it was kind of
dumb, to quit school to go, and then, go though all this procedure, that
you go through at that age, of trying to decide what you are going to do
with your life. You know, when you apply to colleges and so forth... So,
I thought I'd get all that taken care of first... So, I didn't go...

You say that you were "tempted to go," in what capacity? Were
you already a Conscientious Objector?

RM: No, no, no. But, I guess that I was going to go, as I did in
China during the war, and be an "Ambulance Man."

So you just wanted to help in any manner that you could?

RM: Yup, yup, yup... but I... I felt very strongly about the Spanish
Civil War.

Well, my impression is that for young idealists of the time the Spanish
Civil War was a tremendous issue...I think I've told you that I took a course
at the "New School for Social Research" which was taught by a
Lincoln Brigader, and he couldn't have been much older than you at the time,
and he felt strongly enough about it that he dropped out of college and
put his life on hold in order to go over there and confront what he perceived
as a great threat to mankind...fascism as a kind of "pure evil."

RM: Certainly. You know we have one around here, an ex-Lincoln Brigade
person named Leslie Kish.

At the University?

RM: Yup, a retired Sociologist, but still very much on the ball...

I might have to look him up...

RM: Well, you should...

Hmmm, so you're in Philadelphia, it's 1942... and how did you find out
about the Friends Ambulance Service?

RM: Weeellllll, being in a Quaker School, as I was... Well, not in
'42, I'd finished by then, but I guess I was still in touch with those people
and I heard about it...

Now, my understanding is that this group was predominately British, not
American, how did you get involved?

RM: That's right. It was founded in England at the time of the First
World War and then it started up again in the Second War...and, uhm...so,
it was overwhelmingly British. But, there were a few of us Americans, I
think altogether ten or eleven and a similar number of Canadians, and then
a somewhat smaller number of New Zealanders, and then we picked up, in China,
various people who had been stranded there, ah, one American, one Norwegian,
one Czech, one Russian, (Laughs) lot of people there at the
wrong time, so to speak...

So, you were in China from 1942 to '46?

RM: Yup.

And what was your relation with the American soldiers that came later...I
mean to say...I know that you were over there driving 1 1/2 ton trucks that
had been salvaged from the retreat out of Burma --- trucks that had been
converted to burn charcoal --- and then along come these Americans who are
driving brand new 6-by-6s which were running on high octane imported gasoline...what
did that feel like? How did you get along?

RM: Well we didn't have much to do with them...we passed them on
the road, or rather, they passed us. They had a huge base just outside
Kunming and we would occasionally crash that place to see the movies that
they showed and I seem to remember having one or two meals there, on a casual
basis, but, we didn't know any of these people...

Did you sense any curiosity on their part about what another American
was doing over there driving an ambulance with a bunch of Brits?

RM: No, not really...no, I don't think so...but then our connection
with them was so slight that there wasn't much chance for that...

Now, I must admit that I don't know anything about the "nuts and
bolts" of conscription during World War II, did you have to notify
anybody that you were going to China?

RM: Oh Heavens Yes! You couldn't get out of the country unless you
appeared before a Draft Board and they gave you permission. You had to be
classified first, ah, you could be classified, ah, what was it...4-E
"Conscientious Objector," or 4-F, meaning, "Physically Unfit"
or you could get one of the other categories like, what did they call it...
Ah! "Work of National Importance" I don't remember the category..."2-C"
or something...so, that's what they did for me...

So, you went in there and requested 4-E?

RM: No, no, not 4-E...they didn't like to have that on their record,
I think...the Draft Board that is, so they gave me this 2-C, or whatever
the hell it was...

So you were involved in "Work of National Importance"

RM: Yeah, yeah, yeah...

And, how long between that interview and when you went overseas?

RM: Well, everybody was called up to appear before a Draft Board
within...ah, a few months of Pearl Harbor...but, I don't remember what month
it was...but, it was fairly early in '42.

Well, tell me something about your memories of being in a foreign country
for the first time, does anything in particular stand out?

RM: Well...ahhhh (sigh of exasperation) ...it was all brand
new, therefore it was all fascinating. I suppose one could say no, no particular
thing stands out, I would say.... (Laughs)

C'mon Rhoads...

RM: Well, I described that in my little Yellow book... (Fifty
Years of China to Me: Personal Recollections of 1942-1992).

I don't care about your "Little Yellow Book"...this is an oral
history interview!?

RM: Well, when we landed in...well, I won't count Australia...it's
so like this place...but, then, ah, we landed in Karachi and I was fascinated
to see a grand piano moving down the street on the heads of 6 or 8 coolies
and camels pulling carts around the city and all that good stuff...

Well now Rhoads you've told that story a thousand times...and I've been
warned to avoid the stories that have been told and retold...so tell me
something I don't know...what about your first eating experience overseas?

RM: Nah, I don't think that I have any memories of that because we
were put up for the short time that we were there...just a few days...at
an American military camp and we just ate the slop, if I may say so,
that the American Military gave out to their own people. Nothing remarkable
about that...

Okay, let's talk about people... When I was taking class with you as
an undergraduate I remember you assigning readings in books and then, in
the course of the lesson, when students regurgitated what they had read
about Chiang Kai-Shek, or Mao Tse-Tung, or...whoever, that you would then
say..."That's not how I remember them..." or other such comments
that made me sit up and pay attention...tell me about some of the "movers
and shakers" that you knew in China.

RM: Well, unfortunately, in China, Chiang Kai-Shek was a Dictator...totally...
so there weren't no "movers and shakers." There were, however,
people on the side lines...

Well, you can skip "movers and shakers" those are my words...how
about people that would have been footnotes to history?

RM: Yeah well... Boy, you don't see them much in books...Bobby Lin.
Who was the head of the Chinese Red Cross.

Tell me about Bobby Lin.

RM: Well, his name tells you right away that he's Cantonese, but
that's neither here nor there I guess... Ah, he was a good soul...one of
many, in those years who still kept to the... "social gospel"
you might say, that Sun Yat Sen had started out...but who were gradually
pushed to the wall --- and then they were simply eliminated before the war
was over --- by Chiang. What else... Who else? No large number of people
stick out except my own pals, in this unit that I was in...of course I remember
them well and still see them, in England and here...

I know that the Friends Ambulance Unit had a reunion last summer in China,
the purpose of which was to retrace the routes that you had driven during
the war, how was that?

RM: That was fun! To go over those roads again, that we used to drive...

How different were they?

RM: The roads? Terrible, they were starting to rebuild them. Tear'em
up and put something better in their place, at least some of them... Finished
"divided" highways, expressways...but mostly they were awful...being
torn up and all that...

Unchanged since the war?

RM: Well, they were worse than they were then, because, they were
reasonably well maintained then...but they went the same route, yup, and
you could see the same mountains, and all that stuff...

Rhoads, turning back to the war period, I know that you had occasion
to travel to Yenan and so had a unique chance to see both the Nationalist's
and the Communist's spheres of influence...what was your feeling about the
people...did they seem happier when you went up to Yenan?

RM: Oh, no question!

Don't give me "NO QUESTION" tell me a little bit about it...

RM: Well, I think I've told you the story of how depressing Chunking
was... Most of the people were so... money grubbing and corrupt and all
that stuff... "Living on the fat of the land" is how most
people describe it... But once you got up into the Communist areas everybody
was cheerful, hardworking...ah..."getting on with the job." Living
austerely, because that was all they had... No corruption that one could
see...no "Fat Cats" and a very cheerful peasant based group that
was, as I say, was "getting on with the job." The war was over
by that time...but we all knew about what the Communists had been doing
during the war, in the North.

And was the next war gearing up? Did you have any sense of that?

RM: We didn't see...well, we always saw it on the Kuomintang side...
where we could see all along the road, here and there, depots where Chiang
had collected stuff...stockpiled his best weapons: tanks, artillery, blah,
blah, blah, and when you went up across the no man's land, that divided
the two, you had to go through a mine field...Oh God! (Feigns
fear)

That the Kuomintang had put there?

RM: ...that the Kuomintang had put there, sure! I didn't trust those
guys to punch their way out of a wet paper bag so I was most uneasy following
the trail that they indicated...but, then when you got to the other side...and
of course you would see pillboxes and tough looking soldiers with machine
guns and all that garbage...but we didn't see anything like that on the
Communist side...(Laughs)

I'd like to come back to this, but side tracking for a minute, you've
told me about the strange feelings that you had when you saw the contrast
between the poverty that you witnessed in the countryside and the "sumptuous
meals" that you had at road side fan tien (restaurants). How
were you having sumptuous meals?

RM: Well, these places were set up along the road, even in tiny little
towns, to take care of the truck traffic...I mean, truck drivers had to
eat too...

Of course --- but what I want to know is were these set up by the Friends
Ambulance Unit, or had they paid in advance? Or...

RM: No, no, no...we were given a wad of cash to pay our expenses
along the way, including food and charcoal.

Where did this money come from?

RM: The money came jointly from England and from this place (the
United States). Through an outfit called "United China Relief"
which was a consolidation of the...well, it was run by an old missionary
who knew the country well and was a good organizer...Dwight Edwards..."Uncle
Dwight" (laughs).

And you operated out of Kunming?

RM: Yes.

And was there a common route, one that you took more often than not?

RM: Yes. The big traffic thing, from our point of view, was Kunming
to Kweiyang and up north to Chungking then we would go on, sometimes, to
Chengdu, Szechuan, and then sometimes we did side trips "here there
and the other place..."

Yenan?

RM: Yes, and in addition to that I hauled stuff north from our base
in Honan, at Chengchou, up into Communist controlled areas in Honan and
Hupeh. I went up there several times...

And was the Communist's reaction to you any different than that of the
Kuomintang?

RM: Oh sure, of course they were very glad to get that stuff.
On the Kuomintang side this was more routine. We were hauling both to hospitals,
of course they were glad to get it, but more often to the "National
Health Administration," for their warehouses, and there it was just
more bureaucratic.

How about your supplies? Was the Friends Ambulance Unit essentially
an independent operation, or did you have access to the wealth of goods
that the Americans were flying in "over the hump?"

RM: Nah. We bought spare parts and what not, sometimes, on the Black
Market...or we would order them from India...but, freight space over the
hump, by airplane, was dominated by Kuomintang requests and American Military
needs...but, we might sometimes get something squeezed in... So, we had
to improvise a great deal.

Tell me about leaving China.

RM: Leaving? Well, I was really reluctant to go, to leave.
But, uhm, it was time...the war was over...not quite a year yet... When
I got back, as I remember, it was May or June 1946.

Were you under pressure to leave?

RM: Only from family...

Did many of your fellow ambulance drivers stay on after you?

RM: Very few. Most had gone by the time I left...and so, I went back
with a group of British and Americans to England and then crossed from there
to New York with a bunch of Americans.

And what was your sensation at that time?

RM: Well, I thought it was probably not a bad idea to figure out
what the hell I was going to do with my life, and get at it...

How old were you at that time? Ball park figure?

RM: 25.

Okay, let's skip back in time...I've heard snippets of this story many
times, but now I've got you on tape...tell me about traveling to Hanoi in
1942, after the war had started, this was something that could still be
done?

RM: Yes, oh yes! The Japanese were already there of course, but you
could still go down there by train from Kunming. I never made it down there
at that time...I was afraid I would get zapped...I didn't get to Hanoi until
after the war...but some of my buddies had gone down there from Kunming.

So you saw Hanoi after the war? What was the sequence of events that
took you there?

RM: Well, this was part of the job of the unit --- you went wherever
you were needed.

Were you needed in Hanoi?

RM: No, not really. I just went down there for the fun of it...out
of curiosity. It was really quite pleasant.

Rhoads, I remember some story about a woman of "notorious ill repute,"
in Hong Kong, and the story was that she had slept with every foreigner
of any note...or something like that and...

RM: (Roaring Laughter) I know exactly who you're talking about...

Well, you don't have to go into any detail about her, but tell me about
your first memories of Hong Kong.

RM: Oh, well, you've seen Hong Kong...it's a beautiful setting...and
it wasn't anything like the huge "boom town" that it is now...uhm,
it was an outpost of colonialism, as it still is for another few months...

And what year was this?

RM: 1946.

And first impressions?

RM: Well, that it was a western colonial outpost, predominantly Chinese
in population...but with a lot more "symbols" of western rule...than
you would find even in Shanghai, although there were plenty there too...

So you also traveled to Shanghai?

RM: Oh sure. I went down to Shanghai, just about a week after the
war was over to figure out whether they needed any help from us in the way
of medical supplies. Stayed there for a couple of weeks, I guess, went around
to the various internment camps, and here, there, and the other place...and
in fact, they were in reasonable shape. There was a quite decent Japanese
Commandant of the big Allied Internment Camp and people had been reasonably
well treated, reasonably well fed, so they, and others, didn't really need
help... The people who needed help the most were the people in the Jewish
Community in Shanghai. They were stateless, people who, for the most part,
were refugees from Nazi Germany...the Japanese didn't know what the hell
to do with them...so they had just left them alone...pretty much...but they
were not in such great shape...

I've read conflicting statements about that...sometimes the Japanese
are portrayed as having saved European Jews and in other sources it is made
to seem like a "loop-hole" unintentionally allowed this Jewish
Community to remain in Shanghai...What do you think?

RM: Well, I think it's probably as much one as the other...ah, the
Japanese didn't have a very clear position on the Germans...they didn't
know quite how to treat'em... They were allies, yeah, yeah... But THEY
WERE NOT JAPANESE! (Feigned Japanese accent) So, I, (Laughs)
I knew some of those Germans who had spent the war in China, Jews, and
some non-Jews and they told me, from time to time, how the Japanese
had treated them quite ambiguously.

Well, you know it's quite interesting, speaking of Germans, to see photos
of Kuomintang troops from the 1930's when they're all dressed up in what
we, as Americans, see as "Nazi Uniforms." Because, even though
the Japanese were technically already allied to the Germans, Hitler was
concerned enough by the threat of Communism that he thought it was worth
his while to supply Chiang Kai-Shek with munitions so that he might act
as a bulwark against Soviet expansion.

RM: Oh, yes. It was quite real...but the... Von Falkenhausen, I think
was his name, the German commander of this mission to China, took his job
seriously...and whatever else you may say about the Germans, they knew how
to fight. They were good at war!

So, he felt it was part of his job to, in the first place, help Chiang
Kai-Shek rout the Communists out and then to give advice, which was rarely
taken, about the defense of Shanghai...which was the worst mistake that
Chiang ever made, I think....

He didn't have the means to withstand the Japanese...and he lost
most of his good troops, most of his German
equipment...all that good stuff...and for what? For nothing!

Well, Rhoads, you're the Professor, but...I think that Shanghai was to
Chiang Kai-Shek what the Tet Offensive was to Ho Chi Minh, he thought that
maybe, if a stand was made, it would awaken international interest in the
war in China...

RM: Oh it did.

Yeah, images like the one of that Chinese baby crying at the railroad
station suddenly found their way into American homes...that had
to have had an effect on how we saw the Japanese.

RM: Yes, but the Western governments, like the United
States, were still selling scrap iron and oil to the Japanese...they didn't
want to antagonize, they didn't want to lose the business...

Tell me more about Shanghai.

RM: I didn't like Shanghai, never did...ah, it was highly westernized,
of course, and I saw things like trolley cars and...

This sounds like the typical Chinese anti-Shanghai bias...

RM: Well, I suppose it is...but it wasn't really a part of China,
it was soooo western and unlike anything that I had seen before, certainly
in terms of its scale...and it was, it has the reputation of being, a "sin-city"
where there were, you know, truck loads, bus loads, of prostitutes...everywhere.
Lots of dope. Drugs. Lots of opium dens, and all that garbage...this
is all quite true, and the foreigners who lived there, ah, lived a very...protected,
luxurious life... waited on by Chinese servants hand and foot...I didn't
like it...

I want to go back to the Allied Internment Camp...when you got there
people were still "interned?"

RM: Yes, yes. Behind barbed wire, and all that stuff.

But, the war was over?

RM: Well, they didn't take care of all that stuff overnight!

Well, I'm reminded of J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun where he
says that...

RM: It's full of crap!

You think so?

RM: Oh yeah!

(Laughing) Without my making any comments,why is it"Full of Crap?"

RM: Because, in the first place, it shows American military personnel
in the camp...that's not true! It was a civilian internment camp.
What else? Ah...it shows them scrambling for grains of rice thrown on the
floor, that's not true...they weren't short of food!

Really? Why do you say that "they weren't short of food?"

RM: Because I talked to them...saw them...

And this was the multi-national Allied Internment Camp...that contained...ah,
well, anybody that had been there at the time?

RM: Yup.

What about Indians? I know that the English used Sikhs as Policemen in
the International Settlement, had they been culled out for use in Chandra
Bose's Indian National Army?

RM: I can't answer that...but there were no...as far as I know...
I didn't see everyone in the camp, but, it didn't seem to me that
there were any Indians there...it was mostly English and Americans.

A kind of caucasian internment camp?

RM: Yeah, yeah.

But your impression was that conditions were pretty good and that they
had food?

RM: Yup.

And you've read the book or seen the movie?

RM: Oh yeah.

Because the movie does make a big thing of that...you know they're eating
weevils and such...

RM: Arrrghh...now, that may have been so in other camps...I mean
the Japanese don't exactly have a good record for Prison Camps.

My High School Librarian was interned, as a young women, in the Philippines
and she, apparently, had a horrendous experience. But certainly, I won't
question what you saw...I think that probably as many people as there are
in the world, that's how many experiences there were...

RM: Well, elsewhere, they were mostly bad. We knew people who had
been in the Japanese camp in Hong Kong, "Stanley Camp." Terrible!
...and we heard about the Japanese prison camps in Indonesia and
Java, did you see that film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence?

Yeah, I didn't like that one...

RM: Didn't like it?

Nah, did you like it?

RM: No, I didn't think it was the greatest film, but it did show
that things weren't so great in the camps...

Certainly...but I thought that the relationship between David Bowie and
the Japanese camp commander was implausible...and that their fight: Japanese
Katana -vs- British Bayonet, was pretty ridiculous...I saw the movie
a long time ago but I guess I felt that the movie was a vehicle for the
actors rather than a historically accurate portrayal of anything, one way
or the other... But back to our interview... There was a lot of "power
restructuring" going on immediately following the end of the war...how
did you see that?

RM: What do you mean?

Well, I think that a lot of lip service was paid to Roosevelt's theory
of "independence for all indigenous people" but that, with him
dead, it became obvious that Vietnam would return to the French and that
Hong Kong would remain a British Colony, etc., etc... And then of course,
you had the Japanese turning over large piles of weapons to groups like
the Viet Mihn who wished to continue the fight for independence... Anyway,
what I want to know is "how did all of this look to you at the time?"

RM: Well, I used to pass myself off as an American, which I am (Laughs),
during the war, because the British were the big power over there...and
hence the most resented. But, once the bomb was dropped it seemed like,
within five minutes, that it was best to pass yourself off as British.
Which I did...THAT was certainly a restructuring of power...

So it was suddenly a bad thing to be an American, because of the bomb?

RM: Oh yes! OH YES! Definitely!

Amongst whom?

RM: Amongst the people that I interacted with, sure!

I'm a little bit surprised to hear this...everything that I've ever read
has lead me to believe that the Chinese, then and now, hate the Japanese...are
you saying that they resented the American use of the Atomic Bomb on the
Japanese because they were fellow Asians?

RM: It was never articulated...but, I think the thing was that the
Americans had replaced the British as the "Big Noises" and everybody
hates the guy at the top...the guy with power and money...

Isn't one white man as bad as the next...

RM: Well, no, I don't think that it was a racist thing...it was a
reaction to what that creep Henry Luce calls the "American Century."

Okay Rhoads, you skirted my previous question about "movers and
shakers," but before I am willing to let you go, I would like to return
to the question of what notable personages you knew in China...I'm sure
that I remember you mentioning Madame Chiang Kai-Shek...tell me about her.

RM: Well, she had great power for obvious reasons...and she was a
"charmer"...and she would turn that on for the foreigners...

But, did you meet her?

RM: Oh sure!

Tell me about that.

RM: Well...she was...as I described, highly Americanized, she went
to Wellesley and became a Christian and all that good stuff... She
was one of the famous, infamous, "Soong Sisters." Her Father "Charlie,"
that was his name, was an early immigrant to California and apparently made
enough money, running a laundry and cooking and all that stuff, that the
Chinese did in those days, that he was able to go back to Shanghai and give
his three daughters, and one son, a Western/American education.

And how did you meet her?

RM: Well, because, she took it on herself, I guess, to act as "hostess"
for foreigners who were in town. Ahhh, particularly, I guess, people who
weren't in the Army...because they were well taken care of...

This was in Chungking?

RM: Yes, in Chungking. So, we used to go over there, on more than
one occasion, for some sort of reception or "tea" with the Chiangs,
and all that stuff....

So the Generalissimo was there?

RM: He showed up. He never stayed long. In the first place he really
was hopeless at English...so, she did most of, not all of, the talking...well,
probably all of the talking, and she passed the tea and cakes around,
and so on...

I've seen footage of her making a presentation to Congress, her English
really was perfect.

RM: Yup, yup...she spoke well...and she was very "slick"
and very successful at pushing this image of "gallant China" and
that gallant husband of hers...the so called "Generalissimo."

What did it feel like to be in your early twenties having tea and cakes
at the home of the leader of the... "Middle Kingdom?"

RM: We knew too much about these people...we knew they were "thugs"
(Laughs) ...and we weren't that impressed with her. She didn't succeed
in her mission with us, but, it was interesting to see, none the less (mumbles
something). Something that you can think about for the rest of your
life...

And when you went to Yenan, did you meet anyone on the Communist side?

RM: Oh sure! They all turned out! That was one of the
differences between that side and the Kuomintang side...when we arrived
there, the whole gang showed up...and they gave a feast for us one
night and Chou En-lai, who was a "charmer," a wonderful
man and Chu Teh and even Mao showed up, at this party, and then we had a
big celebration afterwards and all that good stuff...

So you came away with a "positive" impression?

RM: Oh, totally! ...totally...and in those days we, like everybody
else, I guess I could say that we were naive, but then so was everybody
else, ah, in, ah, taking the Communists at face value...on the basis of
what they had done up to that point...which was pretty good, pretty positive.
We had no notion of what a nightmare they were going to create...

For example the "Great Leap Forward?"

RM: Oh, God, yeah...that was hopeless...yeah, we didn't have any
idea...

Have you seen the film Yellow Earth? I think it is one of Zhang
Yimou's first films...early 1980s I guess.

RM: I don't think so...what is it about?

It's about a lone Communist soldier who visits a non-Han Chinese ethnic
village and teaches them about the joys of Communism...a very beautiful
film...and one that stresses the message that the Communists were humanitarians.
Which I guess was your first impression?

RM: Oh, yeah...they treated the people well...they paid for the food
that they took, and all that stuff...and they had the great masses
of the people behind them...it's true!

I see where the title of the film comes from "Yellow Earth"
is an English translation for the name that is given to the upper reaches
of the Yangtze "(Speaks Chinese)" or "Golden Sand."

Tell me more about Chou En-Lai...you say that he was a real "charmer,"
tell me about that.

RM: Oh, yes, he was! He was a delightful guy... Well,
there was no real language barrier because his French was excellent and
most of us knew French...and we were quite at home with Chinese so we would
talk both languages with him...and he used to have "open house"
in Chungking...he lived in Chungking for much of the war because he was
the go-between...he was a diplomat...

He had a fourth floor walk up "cold water" flat...in the
back of one of those buildings in Chungking...and we used to go up there
for tea and peanuts, and whatnot, on Thursday afternoons...when he was
in town. He was great...just great. I know why we used to go!
...not just because he was great, but because we had already been planning
to send medical supplies up to them, which we knew they desperately needed...
But, we had been prevented from doing so by the stupid Kuomintang, and so,
we finally "sicked" the Americans, the American Embassy,
on them... To make them, grudgingly, agree to let us go up there.

The "Americans?" Was that because they were the "powers
that be?"

RM: That's right! I wish they would use their power a little bit
more heavily than they do now...the Chinese can get away with anything...and
they know it! They don't give a damn for the United States...because they
know that they're (the United States) "low key."

You are referring to our policy of sometimes "linking" and
other times "not linking" trade to human rights abuses?

RM: Well....yes...we want the money, we want to get at that
market and we don't care if they're rotten to their own people and God knows
what Tibetans and other such people....(Mumbles) I think it stinks...because,
I think that it's morally rotten...

Well Rhoads, what was it like to come back to the States and then, pretty
much right away, in 1947, Churchill makes his speech about the Iron Curtain
and then the Chinese Revolution takes place and the Cold War...how did it
feel to you, at that time, to have known and liked people like Mao Tse-Tung?

RM: Well, I don't know that I thought about it too much at the time...

Well, did you know about the Great Leap Forward while it was happening?

RM: Oh we knew about it...

Have you seen Zhang Yimou's film To Live?

RM: Yes.

What did you think about that film?

RM: Well, it's all...kind of...depressing.

Well let's go back to my previous question... Did you have any sense
that things were that bad? And, how did you reconcile your positive recollections
of these people with the great suffering that they were putting the Chinese
population through?

RM: We knew about the Great Leap Forward mostly because we had access
to a whole bunch of refugee accounts from Hong Kong...that was the big "listening
post" and they had a lot of refugees coming through there...and these
refugees had a lot of stories... and then we heard about the anti-rightist
campaigns...before that...and we heard about some of the "excesses,"
shall we say, of the Land Reform System...mob violence and all that...so
we knew, pretty much, what was going on.

And what were you thinking...in terms of "I've met Mao, and Chou
is a great guy...and how can this be happening?"

RM: I don't know that it did occur to me. I think that Chou En-Lai
tried desperately to keep some sort of balance...to keep Mao from getting
too, weirdly, radical...and of course he failed...really...
I was too absorbed, I guess, with the terrible things that were happening
to the Chinese to really know what Chou En-Lai thought about it...he wasn't
that kind of guy...and yet he was, when necessary, quite ruthless...sure,
I knew that then....

Have you ever been to Taiwan?

RM: Sure, I spent half of the academic year there in 1958.

I'm sure that it was a very Nationalistic place at that time....

RM: Oh, tremendously...this was the time of the Quemoy and Matsu
incidents.

What did that feel like?

RM: Well, it's a police state...and it was even more so then than
it is now...

But Americans were "King" back then in Taiwan, no?

RM: Well, if you wanted to make common cause with those "thugs"
who at that time, Chiang himself, were running the place..uuurgghhhh! (grimaces)
Well, I've really got to go, my class is starting...

That's fine...thank you so much Rhoads... I'm sorry I had to "grill"
you so unmercifully, I really appreciated your letting me monopolize your
time.